If you thought rain and a pandemic could keep our young adults from kicking off a new year of fellowship last Wednesday, you thought wrong! They grabbed their masks, packed their dinners, and met up at the Silcox residence in West Ashley to catch up and meet new folks, including the Rev. Justin Hare, their fearless new leader!

At tonight's gathering, they will don their masks once again, but our favorite (and sorely missed!) chef, Connie Stahl, will be plating up some goodness (served on individual plates) for them to enjoy as they watch a video and chat. All young adults (college-aged and beyond) are invited! Questions? Call/text Justin at (843) 478-3443 or click below to email him.

We are overjoyed to announce that the church office is now open Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. We welcome you to call or stop by! Clergy will be available to meet by appointment. If you do visit, remember to wear your mask inside and to stay six feet away from others.

The church office will return to regular hours (Monday–Thursday, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and 8:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. on Fridays) on September 14. We can't wait to see your smiling faces! (We assume you are smiling under your masks!)

We had another wonderful day of worship in the sanctuary on Sunday! If you weren't able to join us, be sure to watch the service video at the link below.

Your vestry is actively researching and working toward the goal of equipping the historic sanctuary with internet access so that we may broadcast the service in real time––watch your eSPIRE for updates! For now, the service video (from the 10:30 a.m. service only) will be available for viewing each Sunday evening at about 7:00 on our Vimeo and YouTube channels. An audio recording of the sermon is generally available shortly after the 10:30 service on our website.

Because many of our parishioners are returning to in-person worship and do not need to print bulletins at home, we are now sending printable bulletins only to those who wish to continue receiving them. If you haven't already signed up and you'd like to be on the list, click the link below.:

Childcare will not be available during the 10:30 service this week and will instead begin September 13. This is a change from earlier announcements. Amy Watson Smith, Director of Ministry to Children and Families, will be emailing parents and grandparents with guidelines and registration information. If you do not receive children's ministry emails (or are unsure whether you do) and you would like to, please click the link below. We do not yet have a resume date for Children's Church.

Your reservation ensures there will be a place for you to sit, but your seat is not decided until you arrive. To minimize incidental contact between parishioners, ushers will seat available pews from the front of the church to the back, and then move on to the balcony. We currently do not have a way of identifying the registrants who are unable to climb the stairs to the balcony; please arrive early if you must sit downstairs. Ushers begin seating 45 minutes before each service. Reservations will be held until five minutes before each service begins, at which point available pews will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis until we reach our current maximum capacity.

While this Sunday's 10:30 service is full, there was still space available at the 8:15 service of said Morning Prayer (no music) as of yesterday afternoon. If you have not yet made a reservation and you wish to worship in the sanctuary on Sunday, please reserve your space now through the link below or by calling (843) 471-0544.

Your Home Missions team is hard at work identifying needs in our community! As always, the fellowship within this soulful group is contagious, and we get so excited to work with our partners and our St. Philip's family to make a real difference our community!

We are offering ways to have fellowship with each other in a meaningful way while sharing our love of Jesus Christ and our resources, and we hope you will participate! Coming up in less that two weeks is our annual school supply drive, with opportunities to donate and to help sort and distribute the donations at Tricounty Family Ministries. In the first week of November, we will hold a diaper and wipes drive to benefit Lowcountry Pregnancy Center, and in December, we will once again have our Christmas gift-card trees in the narthex, with opportunity for safe participation. Right now we are planning and crafting ornaments for 2020––new designs are in the works!

If you have questions about any of these Home Missions opportunities, please feel free to reach out:

Yesterday was the first day the church office was open in nearly six months, and it was our first staff meeting with Chris Walchesky! You might think the topic that would come up the most during the Hollywood Squares portion of the meeting (when we each take a turn "checking in") would have something to do with welcoming Chris or being back in the office (which was still stuck in March). But no, the recurring phrase was "Justin, I know your ________" (fill in the blank with a relative). We had played that game during Fr. Justin's first staff meeting last month, but yesterday's revival came to us thanks to the Rev. Gerry McCord, who will be filling in in a pastoral capacity for the Rev. Marc Boutan while he's on sabbatical. Gerry ended up winning the "who-knows-the-most-about-the-Hare-family" game despite stiff competition from Florance Anderson, Amy Smith, and Chisolm Leonard (and Tricia Moore, who threw her hat in the ring a little later in the day). Gerry knew Fr. Justin's aunt, father, grandfather, and grandmother, who used to help a young Gerry put sunscreen on his nose at the pool.

After the meeting (which we safely Zoomed into from our individual offices), we headed to the Parlor for some well-spaced singing and cake-eating in celebration of our rector's birthday, which was last Wednesday. While the singing happened too suddenly to be recorded, you may take our word for it that it was surely more beautiful and angelic than any version of "Happy Birthday" you've ever heard, possibly even better than our serenade of Lee Moore and Pat Gould from two weeks ago!

We've been sharing a lot about our staff and clergy while so many church activities have been suspended. But we would really love to share more about you! Do you have a story to share? Something that happened just the other day or something you remember from your childhood? How is God at work in your life? Whether you're sharing a major life event or a quick interaction with a stranger that perhaps made you pause and think, we would love to hear from you––lifelong St. Philippians, newcomers, and everyone in between!

Email your story or any questions to inSPIRE editor Lea Andrews: landrews@stphilipschurchsc.org.

Are you looking for a deeper way to connect with the Body of Christ during COVID-19? Consider joining the Thursday morning Centering Prayer group in its weekly Zoom meeting at 8:00 a.m. This group convenes for one hour, and the heart of the meeting is an opportunity to practice 30 minutes of contemplative (silent) prayer, resting in the presence of the Christ with others who are also earnestly seeking Him. Afterwards, group members discuss their experiences and share insights and prayer requests. This is an opportunity to bond with the Lord and a group rooted in peace.

For more information, please contact Pringle Franklin, group facilitator, at franklin.pringle@comcast.net or (843) 270-5585.

An Instagram photo and story, courtesy of Molly Hare (@haremw):

Last Friday, 6-year-old Graceanna Hare danced in the rain outside of St. Philip's before stepping inside of the sanctuary for the very first time. Her father, the Rev. Justin Hare, leaned down and asked her how it made her feel.

She looked up and said softly, "Daddy, it feels like home."

Call Juanita Orvin, who will connect you with a prayer minister who will pray for your concerns over the phone.

juanitaorvin@gmail.com or (843) 884-4018

Call Suzanne McCord, head of the prayer chain, and she will pass your request on to members of the chain.

suzanne1959@gmail.com or (843) 224-1630

Last week, the Rev. Jeff Miller used Scripture to explore how God can use the suffering in our lives for his glory and our greater good. In Justin Hare's first devotion for St. Philip's, he unpacked a passage from St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians, sharing what he has in common with St. Paul and what God's grace can do for your weary heart.

This week's devotions will be posted to the news section of our website at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow and Friday. Click the top link below if you've missed any and need to catch up; click the bottom link if you'd like the devotions delivered to your email inbox and haven't yet signed up.

It seems like there's a new hurricane threat every week––are you prepared? We never know how bad the effects of a natural disaster will be, so we must prepare ahead of time, even if that means preparing to get help afterwards. This is where the St. Philip's Disaster Relief Team comes in. The Team's mission is to provide help, assistance, and hope to our parishioners and neighbors in times of extreme crisis by offering comfort and minor emergency repairs.

We have a network of parishioners who are willing and able to respond when they are called via our phone tree. We have two points of the phone tree and geographic coordinators for most of the tri-county area already in place. We are always happy to welcome new volunteers!

We pray for the sick: Harold Arnold, Jr., Dotsy Boineau, Kelsey Brockbank, Katie Burris, Julia Drayton, Hal Dyer, Elizabeth Flowers, Mary Forbes, Robert Gould, Janet Hanger, Jonathan Hanger, Amy Kittrell, Dan Kohn, Reed Kurtz, Mac Leppard, Joe Livesay, Alan McNeel, Rogers Moore, Harold Robling, Benjamin Schools, Mike Walsh, Lindsey Wing, and Vereen Woodward.

We pray for protection for Becca Baird, Chris and Julia Beasley, Graham Blunt, Henry Clayton, Ben Colyer, David Daughtridge, Hayes Fair, George Hoefer, Andrew Kane, Horry Kerrison, Charles Kirkman, Frazier Kulze, John Mason, Philip Middleton III, Jackson Miller, Ned Montgomery, Edward Pritchard, and David Scott serving in our Armed Forces.

We pray for our home missions: Star Gospel Mission, Tricounty Family Ministries, Lowcountry Pregnancy Center, St. John's Chapel, and the Open Door Ministry.

We pray for our world missions: For Suzy McCall and LAMB, for the medical missions to Honduras, for ministry to victims of genocide and AIDS in Rwanda, for 10/40 Tribal Commission, for Water Mission, and for St. Jean Baptiste, our sister church, and the schools in Haiti.